Space

Two Galaxies Got Into a Fight and the Result Was Breathtaking

A long time ago in two galaxies far, far away, there was quite the kerfuffle. New research suggests that about 200 million years ago, the Large …

This Jupiter Photo Is Unbearably Gorgeous

This unbearably gorgeous image of Jupiter was taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft back on December 11 and was just shared by NASA on Thursday. From a …

Hubble Spies NGC 4861: A Distant Wolf-Rayet Galaxy That Defies Classification

Nearly 30 million light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Canes Venatici — Latin for “hunting dogs” — lies a galaxy that defies …

A Celestial Cat and Lobster Say Hello in This Mesmerizing New Photo

Stellar nebula are a little like clouds: where you may see the shape of a bunny, I might see a dragon; your sailing ship might be my bumble bee. So …

A spiral in Andromeda

Not to be confused with our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy, the Andromeda constellation is one of the 88 modern constellations. More importantly for …

Dust of the Orion Nebula. What surrounds a hotbed of star formation? In the case of the Orion Nebula -- dust. The entire Orion field, located about 1600 light years away, is inundated with intricate and picturesque filaments of dust. Opaque to visible light, dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by a strong outer wind of particles. The Trapezium and other forming star clusters are embedded in the nebula. The intricate filaments of dust surrounding M42 and M43 appear brown in the featured image, while central glowing gas is highlighted in red. Over the next few million years much of Orion's dust will be slowly destroyed by the very stars now being formed, or dispersed into the Galaxy. (Image Credit & Copyright: Raul Villaverde Fraile / APOD)

Our Hubble Space telescope found what looks like a cosmic, double-bladed lightsaber just in time for the release of #StarWars. This celestial lightsaber does not lie in a galaxy far, far away, but rather inside our home galaxy, the Milky Way. In the center of the image, partially obscured by a dark, Jedi-like cloak of dust, a newborn star shoots twin jets out into space as a sort of birth announcement to the universe. This is inside a turbulent birthing ground for new stars known as the Orion B molecular cloud complex, located 1,350 light-years away. Credit: NASA/ESA #nasa #space #hubble #science #astronomy #telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope checks out globular cluster Terzan 1, a home for old stars. Lying around 20,000 light-years from us in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), it is one of about 150 globular clusters belonging to our galaxy, the Milky Way. Typical globular clusters are collections of around a hundred thousand stars, held together by their mutual gravitational attraction in a spherical shape a few hundred light-years across. They contain some of the oldest stars in a galaxy, hence the reddish colors of the stars in this image — the bright blue ones are foreground stars, not part of the cluster. The ages of the stars in the globular cluster tell us that they were formed during the early stages of galaxy formation! Studying them can also help us to understand how galaxies formed. Image credit: NASA & ESA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt #nasa #hubble #stars #universe #astronomy #science

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this stunning image of what looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. This image shows a bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106. The outstretched "wings" of the nebula record the contrasting imprint of heat and motion against the backdrop of a colder medium. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the "wings" of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an "hourglass" shape. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) #NASA #hubble #hst #universe #science #astronomy

Falcon 9 First Stage Landing | From Helicopter

Long exposure of launch, re-entry, and landing burns https://t.co/Vw1ZJAtvhy

Another view of Falcon 9 first stage approaching Landing Zone 1 https://t.co/i5oNfSYmrc

Space Photos - Satellite Images - Image of the Day

Macarons in Microgravity<p>Credit: ESA/NASA<p><b>Thursday, March 2, 2017:</b> Astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who celebrated his 39th birthday at the International …

The Great Orion Nebula M42. The Great Nebula in Orion, also known as M42, is one of the most famous nebulas in the sky. The star forming region's glowing gas clouds and hot young stars are on the right in this sharp and colorful image that includes the bluish reflection nebulae NGC 1977 and friends on the left. Located at the edge of an otherwise invisible giant molecular cloud complex, these eye-catching nebulas represent only a small fraction of this galactic neighborhood's wealth of interstellar material. Within the well-studied stellar nursery, astronomers have also identified what appear to be numerous infant planetary systems. The gorgeous skyscape spans nearly two degrees or about 45 light-years at the Orion Nebula's estimated distance of 1,500 light-years. (Image Credit & Copyright: Terry Hancock (Down Under Observatory))

IC 1871: Inside the Soul Nebula. This cosmic close-up looks deep inside the Soul Nebula. The dark and brooding dust clouds outlined by bright ridges of glowing gas are cataloged as IC 1871. About 25 light-years across, the telescopic field of view spans only a small part of the much larger Heart and Soul nebulae. At an estimated distance of 6,500 light-years the star-forming complex lies within the Perseus spiral arm of the Milky Way, seen in planet Earth's skies toward the constellation Cassiopeia. An example of triggered star formation, the dense star-forming clouds of IC 1871 are themselves sculpted by the intense winds and radiation of the region's massive young stars. This color image adopts a palette made popular in Hubble images of star-forming regions. (Image Credit & Copyright: Sara Wager / APOD)

AE Aurigae and the Flaming Star Nebula. Is star AE Aurigae on fire? No. Even though AE Aurigae is named the flaming star, the surrounding nebula IC 405 is named the Flaming Star Nebula, and the region appears to have the color of fire, there is no fire. Fire, typically defined as the rapid molecular acquisition of oxygen, happens only when sufficient oxygen is present and is not important in such high-energy, low-oxygen environments such as stars. The material that appears as smoke is mostly interstellar hydrogen, but does contain smoke-like dark filaments of carbon-rich dust grains. The bright star AE Aurigae, visible toward the right near the nebula's center, is so hot it is blue, emitting light so energetic it knocks electrons away from surrounding gas. When a proton recaptures an electron, light is emitted, as seen in the surrounding emission nebula. Pictured above, the Flaming Star nebula lies about 1,500 light years distant, spans about 5 light years, and is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga). (Image Credit & Copyright: Jesús Vargas (Sky-Astrophotography) & Maritxu Poyal (Maritxu))

The Tadpoles of IC 410. This telescopic close-up shows off the otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust below and right of center, the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. Composed of denser cooler gas and dust, the tadpoles are around 10 light-years long and are likely sites of ongoing star formation. Sculpted by winds and radiation from the cluster stars, their heads are outlined by bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the cluster's central region. IC 410 lies some 10,000 light-years away, toward the nebula-rich constellation Auriga. (Image Credit & Copyright: Steven Coates / APOD)

New close-up images of Pluto reveal a bewildering variety of surface features that have scientists reeling because of their range and complexity. This synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from our New Horizons spacecraft, shows what you would see if you were approximately 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) above Pluto's equatorial area, looking northeast over the dark, cratered, informally named Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth, expanse of icy plains informally called Sputnik Planum. The entire expanse of terrain seen in this image is 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) across. The images were taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers). Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute #nasa #pluto #plutoflyby #newhorizons#solarsystem #nasabeyond #science

Before drifting off to tonight, astronaut Scott Kelly (@stationcdrkelly) aboard the International Space Station posted this image and wrote, "Day 179. The #Nile at night is a beautiful sight for these sore eyes. Good night from @ISS! #YearInSpace." Kelly is living and working off the Earth, for the Earth aboard the station for a yearlong mission. Traveling the world about 250 miles above the Earth, and at 17,500 mph, he circumnavigates the globe more than a dozen times a day. Image Credit

This is the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. This view is a mosaic of six pictures from our Hubble Space Telescope of a small area roughly two light-years across, covering only a tiny fraction of the nebula's vast structure. This close-up look unveils wisps of gas, which are all that remain of what was once a star 20 times more massive than our sun. The fast-moving blast wave from the ancient explosion is plowing into a wall of cool, denser interstellar gas, emitting light. The nebula lies along the edge of a large bubble of low-density gas that was blown into space by the dying star prior to its self-detonation. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team #nasa #hubble #hst #hubble25 #space #astronomy #nebular #star #nasabeyond #science

LDN 988 and Friends. Stars are forming in dark, dusty molecular cloud LDN 988. Seen near picture center some 2,000 light-years distant, LDN 988 and other nearby dark nebulae were cataloged by Beverly T. Lynds in 1962 using Palomar Observatory Sky Survey plates. Narrowband and near-infrared explorations of the dark nebula reveal energetic shocks and outflows light-years across associated with dozens of newborn stars. But in this sharp optical telescopic view, the irregular outlines of LDN 988 and friends look like dancing stick figures eclipsing the rich starfields of the constellation Cygnus. From dark sites the region can be identified by eye alone. It's part of the Great Rift of dark clouds along the plane of the Milky Way galaxy known as the Northern Coalsack. (Image Credit & Copyright: Rafael Rodríguez Morales / APOD)

Hubble Peers into the Heart of a Galactic Maelstrom

"If there were no night, we would not appreciate the day, nor could we see the stars and the vastness of the heavens. We must partake of the bitter with the sweet. There is a divine purpose in the adversities we encounter every day. They prepare, they purge, they purify, and thus they bless." - James E. Faust. (Image Credit & Copyright: NGC 6556 + IC1274/IC1275 + IC4685 in Sagittarius, Gerhard Bachmayer)

The rich patchwork of gas clouds in this image make up part of a huge stellar nursery nicknamed the Prawn Nebula (also known as Gum 56 and IC 4628). Taken using the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, this may well be one of the best pictures ever taken of this object. It shows clumps of hot new-born stars nestled in among the clouds that make up the nebula. (Image Credit & Copyright: ESO)